


Mulligan

by mahalidael



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Bugs & Insects, Decapitation, Dialogue Heavy, Gore, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Nausea, Suicide Attempt, The Burning Maze Spoilers, i thought writing this would make me feel better but it made me feel worse, it's just bad, there's a plot hook at the end but im not following up on it, this is... gruesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-06 13:42:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15195995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahalidael/pseuds/mahalidael
Summary: Stages of grief, in order.1. Anger2. Anger3. Anger4. Anger5. Resurrection





	Mulligan

**Author's Note:**

> now that you're here, here's a second reminder that there are spoilers for the burning maze here. like, THE spoiler. stop if you don't already know what i'm talking about.
> 
> ok we good?
> 
> so this is in fact a fic where jason gets brought back to life. however, it is not a happy fic. not in the slightest. it is the worst thing i have ever written by far, both in terms of quality and enjoyment.
> 
> there is suicide. there is self-harm. there is a lot of body horror. like, in the 1st line, there's already body horror. it's not for the faint of heart.
> 
> still good?
> 
> alright, get reading

Nico was sitting in a cheap motel room, helping a girl sew her head back on.

He had a normal needle and a spool of baby blue thread. He was concerned that somebody would notice the stitches. She wasn't. "It's fine, sugar. It's a giant tear in my neck, so I'll have to hide it anyway."

Nico was using a slip stitch. It was hard to see because there was so much blood, but he was doing his best. The girl's body was lying on the cheap motel bed, and her halved throat was spilling red all over the sheets, but it was okay because he still had his Lotus Hotel card from forever ago. He could pay for the sheets. And the motel staff.

He learned slip stitches from Will but that felt like forever ago too. But it was only a month. Almost two.

Jason's birthday, nearly.

"How are you still talking?" Nico said absently.

The girl's severed head paused. She might have been trying to shrug, but her spinal cord was still severed. "Hell if I know. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, y'know? Speakin' of mouth, be a dear and give me a little of that there nectar when you're done stitchin'."

Nico calmly finished the suture. Each stitch was broad and shaky but in the long term it wouldn't matter much, would it? Nothing mattered in the long term. He took the nectar off the nightstand and poured it into the girl's mouth. He reached the limit he had memorized from his time in the infirmary and stopped.

"A little more."

"I can't give you more. If I do, it'll..."

"What, it'll kill me?" She laughed.

Fair point.

He kept pouring.

After some time the girl sat up. Her blouse was stained rust red. "Damn. I liked this shirt."

She walked over to the motel closet and took off the blouse. "Shouldn't I be in another room for this?" Nico said, covering his eyes.

"Please, Nico, I know you're gay," she said, pulling on a hideous leopard print shirt. A scarf hid the scar. "I know lots of things about you. I've been lookin' for you. I was just marvelin' that I found you when that semi happened to pull up."

Nico leaned back on the bed. He dimly registered that he hadn't told her his name. That was dangerous, but he hadn't cared about danger in forever. "So, what? You're an empousa?"

She blew a raspberry. The wet noise hit Nico like a jiffy bag of soup on pavement. "Oh, I wish. If I were, I'd at least get a break every now and then, even if my demise weren't permanent."

He shrugged. "A minor goddess? Hera, again? Give me something to work with here - where are you going?" he demanded as she walked out the door.

She held the door. "Come on. Let's talk somewhere nicer than this dump. Maybe the bakery downstreet. I've got an offer for you."

"What offer?"

"The thing you've been lookin' for. A soul that's cheated death."

He stared.

"Well, don't just sit there. I may not be dyin', but I'm not gettin' any younger either. Who knows, maybe you can fix that."

* * *

Leo locked a door, after which it ceased to exist. The door was invisible to anyone walking by. The Mist Generator was working well. He didn't know what passersby saw but it wasn't his door. Even Leo was affected, somewhat; the door was a child's drawing of what it was, but because he was the device's inventor the door still shut for him.

Did that make sense?

Irrelevant. What was sense?

What was written on the wall was once an accurate graph, but at the rebellion's current rate of growth he doubted it was accurate anymore. Every arrow and name was still burned into his corneas, though. He was trying to chart hatred, and it hurt. Any attempt at figuring out why sent him down a well-traveled mental road where no grass grew.

He heard an explosion in the distance.

Great. Someone was trying to burn the camp down again. It would be ten minutes of water nymphs blasting the arson, a struggle with the arsonist, and then ten more minutes of satyrs playing magically calming music to keep everyone from getting riled again.

Leo sighed and picked up the gun. It was a revolver. It wasn't celestial bronze, but it didn't need to be. Best to try now, when everyone was distracted.

There were sounds of running and crying outside. Probably unrelated.

Leo was about to pull the trigger when Nico manifested in the bunker.

They stared at each other for a solid minute.

Leo pulled the gun out of his mouth, uncocked it, and gestured emphatically at Nico, a wisp of spit dripping from the barrel. "You finally come back to camp, and it's right here, right now?" he said, sounding more disappointed than not.

"Glad to see you too." He picked up a pair of sewing scissors off the workbench. The short blades were crusty with blood. "How's everyone holding up?"

"Badly. They stuck around for the funeral, but they weren't really  _there_. I thought you'd at least show up for that, try and get some closure."

"What, did it give  _you_ any closure?"

Leo clenched his jaw.

"I thought so. Put that thing down. You could kill yourself, if you're not careful."

"Fuck you, dude. Are you just here to make us feel shittier? Because one of us is already spending sixteen hours a day having to be talked off the ledge by _fish_ , and that's just Percy. At least I'm doing something about it."

Another explosion rocked the bunker.

"It sounds like the end of the world out there."

"It practically is. A lot of people took Jason's death even worse. They didn't know him, but they figure, if you're the son of the king god and saved the world twice over and you  _still_ die at seventeen, then  _why bother?_ " Leo shook his head. "The only reason we're not all dead yet is because they haven't found any gods willing to back them up."

"What, and you agree?"

"'Why bother' is definitely something that's come up for me. I don't think arson's the answer, though. So are you gonna leave or what? I'm a little busy here."

"Are you trying that 'soul for a soul' bullshit? I already have someone else lined up to die."

Leo lowered the gun. "What?"

"Take my hand. We're going for a ride."

They reappeared on the creaking porch of a wooden swamp house. It stunk of perfume and rotting meat. Leo gagged. "What fresh hell is this?"

A voice whooped behind him, "I'd hardly call it  _fresh_ , but I'd certainly call it hell!" He turned. A girl in a hideous leopard print shirt was perched on a rocking chair on the porch.

Leo looked back and forth between Nico and the girl. "What's going on?"

* * *

"I'll tell you what happened: gods are assholes."

Thunder rumbled above them. Nico looked up cautiously.

"Oh, what! Like that'll do anything?" the girl challenged, shaking her fist at the sky. "Go on! Hit me! It'll be quality enrichment, I'm sure!"

"You know I'm still sitting right next to you?" Nico said.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry, the rest of my family has the same condition. Cussin' out Zeus has become a habit of ours. Those of us that still got jaws to cuss with, anyway."

"The rest of your-" A long-dark section of Nico's brain, the part that stored Mythomagic stats, lit up in recognition. "You don't die. You're not getting any younger. You're - you're like Tisiphus. No, Tithonus!"

Tithonus, lover of Eos. Eos asked Zeus to give him eternal life, but forgot to ask him for eternal youth. Tithonus continued aging, but was unable to die even though he wished for it.

"I'm in the early stages," the girl said. "I hear you'd like to bring somebody back to life. My grandpa would like to die."

* * *

 

Emotionally, Leo was numb. He'd fantasized about bringing back Jason  _somehow_ for months, but after everything that happened he couldn't feel anything about the idea. Sure, Jason would be back, but Camp Half-Blood was a shell of its former self with or without him. "You're his friend," Nico said. It was meant to be heartfelt, but the both of them were so detached that it was like a conversation between robots. "You deserve to be there for him when he comes back."

Nico walked into the house. Leo came behind him.

Mosquito coils burned on every table and wall. For all the effort, it did very little for the smell of a dug up grave. Walking up moldy stairs that creaked under his feet. The mildew almost made Nico slip and fall, but Leo was there to support him.

The girl made a noise like she wanted to stop him, but withdrew. When Leo reached the top of the stairs, he began to wish she did stop him.

There were no mosquito coils up here, and the stench made him gag. The thing on the bed was blurry in his vision. Maybe this was the Mist's way of protecting him from something truly traumatic. He scrambled down the staircase, but he still heard the conversation.

"Sorry, he's tired. He's spent the past hour having flies scooped out of him."

Nico retched audibly. "What in the name of... he's only eighty-two."

"Technically, he was only meant to live until eighty. That was when his kidneys failed and his heart stopped pumping blood. All my older relatives are like this. Decaying bodies that still feel. Up until now I've tried to make him comfortable, I left you alone to fight your war... and then that _other_ war. And now this whole fiasco. Now I'm starting to think the wars will never stop, so I might as well interrupt you."

"You might be right."

A creaking voice started up. "Hello?"

Nico made a quiet, indecipherable noise. The girl spoke. "Hey, grandpa."

"Hello, have we met?" the creaking man said.

There was a quiet, frustrated sigh from the girl. Nico was silent. Probably feeling the same things Leo was. Did this man know he was about to die?

"I have a present for you. I found him," she said. "This boy is going to make the pain go away."

"I'm not in pain."

"You'll stop forgetting things."

"I haven't forgotten anything."

"You don't even know who I am."

"Of course I do." He paused. "You're my secretary."

They were all quiet.

"You know, grandpa," she began, "you dated a goddess, once. In 1951, a woman named Eos was so in love with you she tried to make you immortal. It didn't work all the way. The only people who can reverse it are children of Hades. In 1951, all the children of Hades were dead. But now they're not." He heard her shift. "You know, this boy has a friend. He died very tragically. And he needs your help... to help him. Do you understand?"

"..."

There was a squishing noise.

Nico retched some more. "No. No," he said quietly.

"Is this a 'no' to the killing or a general 'no?'" the girl said.

"I don't feel right killing a man who doesn't know that he's being killed."

"Look at him. Whether you like or not, he's dead. Give his soul some peace, at the very least."

Leo wondered if the man knew about the chaos that was tearing the world apart. Perhaps if he saw the blood and the burning and the smoke he'd take the offer. Perhaps, somewhere in that decaying body, he understood.

He didn't, but it wasn't his decision.

* * *

Jason woke up in a filthy swamp house full of mosquito coils.

"Where am I?" He looked around. Nico and Leo were standing nearby, looking dumbfounded. Almost numb. "What happened?"

A girl strolled by them, humming "Dixie's Land," dragging a bulging garbage bag that reeked of rotting flesh.

The two boys rushed forward and hugged Jason. Jason was too confused to respond. He was dead. He was supposed to be dead.

Eventually, they all recovered from the shock enough that Nico could shadow travel back to camp. They were in Leo's bunker. "You'll have to sleep here for a while," Leo said. "They haven't rebuilt the Zeus cabin yet."

Jason's jaw dropped. "What?"

Leo shrugged. "There was a bomb. A bunch of people decided they couldn't stand having a statue of Zeus on camp grounds so they just... boom," he said placidly. "Seems like that's all anyone thinks about nowadays."

Jason walked towards the door.

"You don't want to do that."

"I want to see!" Jason demanded.

Jason opened the door and saw a screaming, naked man with a machine gun. "I'M A DOLPHIN! I'M A DOLPHIIIN! SUCK MY DICK!"

Jason closed the door.

Jason turned to Leo.

Leo shrugged again. "Reason's kind of dead," he said, tightening a bolt.

Jason slid to the floor. "What do we do?"

"Wait it out. It always gets better."

* * *

(The girl sat in a cheap hotel room with a boy.

"How many of you are there?"

"A lot. But for your purposes you'd only need one." Her poisonous green eyes looked through the glass of blue punch.

"Does it matter if they're in Tartarus?"

"Not at all."

Percy stared at his drink.

He knew it was the wrong path to take. But god, at least it was a path.)

* * *

Outside, the gunfire went on forever.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> originally this was meant to be a lot longer. i had to make it much shorter and shittier because writing on the topic of death was more upsetting than anticipated. the unnamed girl and her grandfather are somewhat based off my experiences with my grandfather. this was probably why.
> 
> a summary of the post-jason world:
> 
> 1\. jason was turned into a martyr for a 2nd rebellion against the gods, which is very violent and implied to be much larger than luke's  
> 2\. there is a man who ages, but cannot die. he has a family who shares the same trait. nico kills this man and trades his soul for jason's  
> 3\. the unnamed girl (also immortal) wants her entire family dead. exactly why is unknown. possibly mercy. probably not  
> 4\. she is selling souls to the highest bidder. essentially, resurrection is now available for a very low price  
> 5\. dark!percy is there and doing... something shady? i don't know either?
> 
> yeah that's it. i'm going to bed now. yeesh this was bad for my mood.


End file.
